Beyond the boundaries of established science an avalanche of exotic ideas compete for our attention. Experts tell us that these ideas should not be permitted to take up the time of working scientists, and for the most part they are surely correct. But what about the gems in the rubble pile? By what ground-rules might we bring extraordinary new possibilities to light?

Two researchers working on the lost technology of Ancient Egypt have rediscovered the secret of the Dendera Light (aka. The Snake Tube). Working on the assumption that the images on the temple walls reveal Ancient Technology, the researchers discovered that the snake tube images at the Dendera Temple are actually stable low density plasma focus devices - where the lotus flower is the plasma focus, the body of the snake is the 'sausage' or 'birkland current', the neck of the snake is the 'Z' pinch, and the head of the snake is the 'plasmoid'

Dendera Light (aka. The Snake Tube)

Dendera Crypt: "The lotus gives forth the sun of a new day"

Stable Low Density Plasma Focus Device

EU Translation: The plasma focus produces a new solar orb (i.e. similar to galactic nebula, only smaller)...

Last edited by davesmith_au on Wed Oct 23, 2013 8:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reason:typo, new member's request

"If you want to understand the Lost Technology of Ancient Egypt, study(Electrical) Storms, Soap Bubbles and Solitons." - Cashus the Giant

"It is dangerous to be right in matters where established men are wrong.""Doubt is not an agreeable condition, but certainty is an absurd one.""Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." Voltaire

"It is dangerous to be right in matters where established men are wrong.""Doubt is not an agreeable condition, but certainty is an absurd one.""Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." Voltaire

This photo was taken the day we succeeded in reproducing the glowing snake in the tube (April 14th, 2012)...

Stable Low Density Plasma Focus Device

I posted it here (at Thunderbolts) as a sort of 'signal flare' to alert fellow researchers of our progress.

The clues we discovered can be found in these two images located in the Dendera crypt...

Night and Day tubes and Giant Menat Necklace

As electronic technicians, we figured we were looking at batteries, wires, coils, capacitors and plasma tubes...

It was just a question of putting the pieces together correctly to solve the puzzle...

A key milestone was discovering the source of the high voltage AC electricity needed to light the plasma tubes.

We had always been intrigued by the Bagdhad Battery and were on the lookout for an Egyptian version.

The Baghdad Battery Technology

In 1997, we eventually found it in the Hathor Crotalum/Sistrum (i.e. Cimbal/Rattle), which turned out to be a sort of battery powered electro-magnetic induction coil, very much like a simple electro-magnetic buzzer.

The Hathor Crotalum/Sistrum

A Simple Electro-Magetic Buzzer Circuit

In the picture, we see the priestess in the chair holding out a (was) scepter to get some sort of charge from the outstretched arm holding the crotalum/sistrum (i.e. induction coil).

The Crotalum/Sistrum and (was) Scepter

In this picture, we see another crotalum/sistrum being used to charge a small menat necklace...

The Crotalum/Sistrum and Menat Necklace

And in this picture, we see the Giant Menat Necklace with 4 Large Crotalum/Sistrums, which power the large plasma tubes...

The Giant Menat Necklace w/ 4 Crotalum/Sistrums

Once the power source was identified, our attention then turned to the snake tubes...

More on that part of the story in my next post......

Alchemical Laboratory (notice snake in the bottle)

"If you want to understand the Lost Technology of Ancient Egypt, study(Electrical) Storms, Soap Bubbles and Solitons." - Cashus the Giant

Did you guys do any experiments? Maybe a schematic diagram would be helpful. Did you measure the output energy of the Baghdad battery and used it for the other experiment perhaps? It all makes me terribly curious.....more information please.....

Today's scientists have substituted mathematics for experiments, and they wander off through equation after equation, and eventually build a structure which has no relation to reality. -Nikola Tesla -1934

There are some rather daunting challenges in deciphering Ancient Egyptian Technology.

While we have the suggestive images and writings on the temple walls, we have little or no physical evidence/artifacts of the actual technology available for us to study.

It is like trying to solve a jigsaw puzzle without seeing the picture on the box. It basically leaves us with a lot of guessing and assuming.

For me, I assumed that the Dendera Lights and the Solar Disc headdresses depicted on the temple walls were plasma (gas discharge) tubes/bulbs.

Artist conception of a Snake Tube

Artist conception of a Solar Disc headress

I could imagine the Egyptians had the technology for making glass bottles (tubes/bulbs) and filling them with various gases under low pressure (by simply heating, sealing and cooling the glass bottles).

Depiction of a Egyptian Necklace Workshop

But I found it hard to imagine them having the technology required to pull the high vacuum needed for a standard incandescent lamp or cathode ray tube (i.e. Crookes Tube).

Early Incandescent (Edison) Lamps

A Crookes Tube (aka, a cathode ray tube)

So, although it was clear that the Baghdad Battery would be a good source of DC (direct current) electricity, and could easily power an incandescent light bulb directly, as an electrical technician, I suspected there had to be something more in order to generate the AC (alternating current) electricity required to light these plasma tubes/bulbs (that I imagined I was seeing in the images on the temple walls).

When I first saw the Hathor Sistrum/Crotalum images found on the crypt walls of Dendera, I intuitively knew that the solution (to the plasma bulb power source) I was seeking was there, somewhere.

Hathor Sistrum/Crotalum image - Dendera Crypt

WAS Scepter w/ Hathor Sistrum/Crotalum

My first challenge was to identify the battery in the sistrum/crotalum configuration. I originally assumed it had some version of the Baghdad Battery located somewhere in the Hathor head, but I quickly realized I needed more voltage then a single cell battery could deliver (a typical single cell battery delivers about 1.3 volts DC). I figured it must be some sort of multi-cell battery, something like a Voltaic Pile, which I imagined was located somewhere in the handle (which might explained why many of these handles in the images are really big).

A Voltaic Pile - Multi-Cell Battery

But how did these multi-cell batteries light the plasma bulbs?

My first clue was the ‘was’ scepter. I had read in Tom Kenyon and Virginia Essene’s book ‘The Hathor Material’ that the ‘was’ scepter was a big tuning fork (I no longer believe that, but it helped lead me in the right direction at the time).

The WAS Scepter

I asked myself, ‘Would a tuning fork and a spiral metal contact do anything interesting with a battery?’.

Tuning Fork and Spiral Metal Contact

---Continued in my next post... (I hit the attachment limit per post)

"If you want to understand the Lost Technology of Ancient Egypt, study(Electrical) Storms, Soap Bubbles and Solitons." - Cashus the Giant

Continued from my previous post...---The answer was yes, it could chop the steady DC current of the battery into a pulsing DC square wave.

Tuning Fork - Spiral Metal Contact - Battery

A good start, but the pulsing DC was not enough to light the plasma bulb. I needed to generate high voltage, somehow.

I then noticed the box or naos on top of the Hathor head of the sistrum/crotalum. I had found many examples of these which depicted a snake in the box/naos.

Sistrum/Crotalum w/ Snake in Naos

Not just any snake mind you, but a cobra. Humm… I thought, ‘What is a cobra known for?’ – coiling.

What if I added an induction coil to the circuit?

I tested it out and, sure enough, it created a perfect high voltage AC signal that lit the plasma bulb very well - but only while the tuning fork was actively vibrating. The tuning fork was turning out to be a big problem that had to be resolved…

Tuning Fork - Spiral Metal Contact - Battery - Coil

I eventually discovered that the ‘was’ scepter was not a tuning fork after all. It turned out to be a simple carved wooden staff covered with gold leaf (I had found many examples in the Cairo Museum during my 1997 trip).

WAS Scepter (wood)

It was still electrically conductive (those covered in gold leaf, that is), but it was not a viable source for chopping or vibrating the DC current. Dead end – show stopper…

I struggled with the problem for many years, until one day (in the summer of 2000), while I was fiddling with an old electromagnetic relay that I had picked up at an electronics junk store, I had another intuitive hit – of course, the solution was obvious, how could I have missed it?

Old ElectroMagnetic Relay

The sistrum/crotalum was a door bell – an electric buzzer. The spiral contacts (i.e. what I call the clappers) on the sides of the box/naos are most probably made of some ferromagnetic material (like spring steel or a combination of iron and copper bound together).

With all the pieces identified I quickly built and tested a model, which worked really well.

Sistrum/Crotalum Model

Sistrum/Crotalum Model w/ Plasma Bulb

No tuning forks to mess with. You just touch the 'was' scepter to the spiral ferromagnetic clapper contact and the plasma bulb lights right up... Great...

I had just one more problem to solve before I was satisfied with the overall solution.

I call this the ‘single wire’ problem.

In looking at the image of the priestess in the chair on the temple walls, I had assumed that the handle of the sistrum/crotalum was electrically connected to the ‘was’ scepter (located in the hand of the priestess in the chair) by a conductive connection made through the floor. Basically, the floor had to be electrically conductive for the circuit to work – hence a single wire must connect the sistrum/crotalum to the ‘was’ scepter.

The problem was, in my original buzzer solution, I needed two wires to get the Solar Disc, on the head of the priestesses, to light (basically, I needed to connect the Solar Disc headdress across the spark gap between the ‘was’ scepter and the ferromagnetic clappers on the sistrum/crotalum) .

But there was no second wire to be found in the images…

The solution turned out to be the counterpoise on the menat necklace (i.e. the bell).

Menat Necklace w/ Counterpoise

The menat is the large pectoral necklace seen practically everywhere in the images, and the counterpoise is the counter weight that hangs down the back of the priestess and balances the front of the necklace.

The counterpoise turned out to be a second induction coil in the circuit, electrically connected in between the sistrum/crotalum handle (i.e. the battery contact) and the ‘was’ scepter (i.e. the spark gap), and is used to generate the high voltage AC needed by the Solar Disc headdress. If fact, I believe it may turn out to be a tuned resonant L/C circuit – hence the bell.

I made the changes to the circuit and everything came to together nicely…

Sistrum/Crotalum Model w/ Secondary Coil

When the smoke cleared, the final solution turned out to be a turn of the century High Voltage Kicker Coil (a simple Tesla Coil from the 1800’s)

High Voltage Kicker Coil Schematic

---

Again, once the power source was identified, our attention then turned to the snake tubes...

More on that part of the story in my next post......

"If you want to understand the Lost Technology of Ancient Egypt, study(Electrical) Storms, Soap Bubbles and Solitons." - Cashus the Giant

This one is of a menat necklace counterpoise (I believe it is ornamental) that depicts a Hathor Sistrum/Crotalum with some interesting details.

Menat Necklace Counterpoise

I believe it is showing both the electromagnetic buzzer assembly in the box/naos above the Hathor head, as well as the multi-cell battery (i.e. Voltaic Pile) in the handle (I just discovered this one a few weeks ago - dovetails with the model nicely, I think).

Sistrum/Crotalum w/ Buzzer & Battery

Sistrum/Crotalum Model

A Voltaic Pile (early 1800's)

This one is from the crypt at Dendera and it depicts a large sistrum/crotalum with a Solar Disc headdress inside the box/naos (notice the long battery column).

Large Sistrum/Crotalum w/ Solar Disc Headdress

It appears to show the electrodes (horns) on the plasma bulb making contact with the sides of the box/naos - tapping the high voltage.

Solar Disc Headdress inside Box/Naos

And this one, also from the crypt at Dendera, I like because it indicates the large scale of some of these sistrum/crotalums.

Large Sistrum/Crotalums

Notice the size of the two technicians in contrast to the base of the sistrum/crotalum (i.e. the battery column).

Sistrum/Crotalum Base w/ Technicians

---Next post, the snake tube story...

Seeing Beyond the Horizon

"If you want to understand the Lost Technology of Ancient Egypt, study(Electrical) Storms, Soap Bubbles and Solitons." - Cashus the Giant

In the early days of Egyptology, the scholars were at a serious disadvantage in their research because, at the time, no one living knew how to read/decipher the hieroglyphic texts/writings.

That was, until the Rosetta Stone was discovered and decoded.

The Rosetta Stone

And the reason the Rosetta Stone could be decoded was because it contained the text of both a known language (Greek) and an unknown language (Egyptian Hieroglyphics) side by side.

By knowing the one we were eventually able to decipher the other.

Rosetta Stone - Detail

Years ago, when I was studying computers, I was at a friend’s house one morning reading a text book. Curious as to what I was reading, my friend glanced over my shoulder and gasped, “what kind of language is that?”.

The bulk of the text was written in the ‘C’ programming language, and although it looked like standard English, it was not standard English – it was the language of computer programming using English words to represent computer programming concepts.

In the same way, I believe that is what we are seeing here.

The Dendera Crypt

My friend Cashus calls this the Rosetta Stone of Egyptian Technology.

But instead of having Greek and Egyptian Hieroglyphics side by side, here we have Technology and Egyptian Hieroglyphics side by side.

The Rosetta Stone of Egyptian Technology

The more we can discover regarding the technology on the walls, the more we will understand the true meaning of the accompanying hieroglyphic texts.

It reads like mythology, but it is actually describing circuit design, circuit components and their functions.

Dendera Light

"The lotus flower give forth the sun of a new day".

I will have more to say on this topic in my next post.

"If you want to understand the Lost Technology of Ancient Egypt, study(Electrical) Storms, Soap Bubbles and Solitons." - Cashus the Giant

"It is dangerous to be right in matters where established men are wrong.""Doubt is not an agreeable condition, but certainty is an absurd one.""Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." Voltaire

So, to recap, from about 1996 to 2000, the main focus of my research was to identify and demonstrate a power source which could possibly have been used by the Ancient Egyptians to light a plasma bulb, since it was clear to me that, without a plausible power source (one using only the technology available to the Ancient Egyptians), any chances of rediscovering the secrets of the Egyptian electric (plasma) light were slim to none.

But with the power source identified and demonstrated (i.e. the sistrum/crotalum), the search for the snake tube continued...

While I was focused on experimenting with tuning forks and electric buzzers, I utilized very inexpensive neon bulbs for testing purposes.

Single Neon Bulb w/ internal electrodes

Single Neon Bulb w/ external electrodes (Solar Disc headdress)

Double Neon Bulbs w/ external electrodes (Snake Tubes)

But once I successfully built and demonstrated a working sistrum/crotalum, I lost interest in the work and stopped experimenting all together.

I was convinced I had solved the power source puzzle and was satisfied to have my Egyptian Toy and move on to other interests.

Nine years would pass, till, in the fall of 2009, I was contacted by my old friend and research partner Kismet who was very interested in picking up the trail and taking the next step in the work – the Snake Tube…

Kismet and I had been into fringe/alternative technologies since the late 80’s and had consulted and collaborated on many ‘Mad Science’ projects over the years.

With Kismet’s encouragement and a renewed sense of purpose, we returned to the work.

For reasons I stated earlier, we were pretty sure the Snake Tube was a plasma (gas discharge) tube/bulb, similar to the neon bulbs I had been using in my sistrum/crotalum work - only bigger.

So our first order of business was to identify a power source that scaled the sistrum/crotalum (electro-magnetic buzzer) technology I had found to a size powerful enough to drive the bigger tubes/bulbs.

Luckily for us, a good candidate for the job (found in close proximity to the snake tubes in the crypt) was available. The Giant Menat Neckace Machine…

The Giant Menat Neckace Machine…

I had been studying this image for years (I had placed a copy of it on my refrigerator, just so I could stare at it for hours).

With its four large sistrum/crotalum battery powered inductors, glass beaded (insulated) wires/necklace, capacitive bowl and large cone shaped counterpoise coil (i.e the bell), we determined it was some sort of big Tesla coil used to produce the high voltage AC electricity needed to drive the large snake tubes/bulbs.

We designed a workable schematic of the circuit, that we were certain would work (we have since built and tested the device successfully), but we decided not to get sidetracked in the moment and instead chose to use existing, ‘off the shelf’, Tesla coils…

A Typical Tesla Coil

And press on with the snake (plasma) tube/bulb work…---Continued in my next post...

"If you want to understand the Lost Technology of Ancient Egypt, study(Electrical) Storms, Soap Bubbles and Solitons." - Cashus the Giant